#ownership — Public Fediverse posts

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#NewsBeep #News #Economy #AU #Australia #BNPL #Business #consumerdebt #ownership #Physicalmedia #subscriptions
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/892983/

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#NewsBeep #News #Economy #AU #Australia #BNPL #Business #consumerdebt #ownership #Physicalmedia #subscriptions
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/892983/

https://www.europesays.com/uk/1205433/ Do we even own anything anymore? #BNPL #Business #ConsumerDebt #Economy #Ownership #PhysicalMedia #subscriptions #UK #UnitedKingdom

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#Economy #BNPL #business #consumerdebt #Ownership #physicalmedia #subscriptions
https://www.europesays.com/3252332/

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Economy #BNPL #Business #consumerdebt #ownership #PhysicalMedia #subscriptions
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/848457/

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Economy #BNPL #Business #consumerdebt #ownership #PhysicalMedia #subscriptions
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/848457/

Do we even own anything anymore?

Sonya Joseph grew up on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn. “Around the block we had nice small mom…
#NewsBeep #News #Economy #BNPL #Business #consumerdebt #ownership #physicalmedia #subscriptions #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/771196/

https://www.europesays.com/ie/689263/ Do we even own anything anymore? #BNPL #Business #ConsumerDebt #Economy #Éire #IE #Ireland #ownership #PhysicalMedia #subscriptions

#MissKittyPolitics If your #human #rights are met, and TOTALLY met as in the #UDHR, then my expectation is that most people's wants after that are not over the top. Private land #ownership ruins the ability to properly design resources and the use thereof. It is a debacle. #System design failure.🔦🔦🔦

https://www.europesays.com/africa/424032/ Somali region president criticizes claims of exclusive ownership over past struggles #Claims #criticizes #Ethiopia #exclusive #of #Over #Ownership #past #President #region #Somali #struggles

All-new in SEP, Capitalism, by Chiara Cordelli,

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capitalism/

#sep #capitalism #kapitalismi #Economics #talous #riisto #exploitation #property #ownership #omistus #socialism #sosialismi #yhteiskunta #society #work #labor #työ #political #politicalPhilosophy #economy #filosofia #philosophy #concept #hayek #marx #domination #alienation #nature #weber #keynes #polanyi #freedom

Engadget: PlayStation just struck a hammer blow to game preservation. “So, that’s it then. As of 2028, game discs will be a thing of the past for PlayStation. And after previously attempting to do so five years ago — before a backlash prompted it to reverse course — Sony is finally shuttering the digital storefronts on PS3 and PlayStation Vita. It doesn’t seem like the company will back […]

A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

COVET, v.i. To desire that which the owner wickedly withholds.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Covet,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-10-07)

More about this quote: wist.info/bierce-ambrose/83831…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #ambrosebierce #devilsdictionary #covet #deserving #desire #ownership #perspective

RE: https://mastodon.online/@streetartutopia/116515291379924975

Nationalize Amazon, SpaceX, and Star Link. Tax billionaires out of existence.
#UBI #universal #basic #income #housing #crisis #ban #investment #bank #SingleFamily #home #ownership #progressive #taxation #USA #late #stage #capitalism #fascist #policies #oligarchy #MET #gala #garish #millionaire #RedCarpet #fawning #conserivative #press #glorify #wealth #hording

How "federal policies increase debt and home size — and thereby sprawl": https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-the-government-built-the-american-dream-house

#housing #taxBreaks #mortgage #wealth #realEstate #assets #ownership #property #realEstate #insurance #loans #debt #taxes #urbanSprawl #policy #homeLoans

This Is What a Personal Surveillance System Actually Looks Like

https://cha1nc0der.wordpress.com/2026/04/03/this-is-what-a-personal-surveillance-system-actually-looks-like/

Real ID: Federal Mandate, National Card, or Something Worse?

The Real ID is now the law of the land, but it is not the law most Americans think it is, and the story of how it arrived at your local DMV is a twenty-year saga of congressional sleight-of-hand, serial postponement, and a quiet transformation of the American driver’s license into something it was never designed to be. The question everyone should be asking is not whether they need one. The question is what the Real ID actually represents in the architecture of American civic life, and whether the reassurances offered by the Department of Homeland Security hold up under any meaningful scrutiny.

What Is Real ID, Exactly?

Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005 as a direct response to the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the federal government establish minimum standards for state-issued identification documents. The Act was attached as a rider to a military spending and tsunami relief appropriations bill, which meant it passed without standalone debate, without dedicated committee hearings on the identification provisions, and without meaningful input from the states that would be required to implement it. The law established that state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards would no longer be accepted for “official purposes” by federal agencies unless those cards met a new set of security and verification standards. Those official purposes include boarding commercial domestic flights, entering federal buildings such as courthouses and military installations, and accessing nuclear power plants.

The critical distinction that most people miss is this: Real ID is not a federal identification card. It is a federal standard imposed upon state-issued identification. Your Real ID is still issued by your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. It still looks like a driver’s license. It still has your state’s name on it. But it must now conform to requirements dictated by the Department of Homeland Security, and your personal data is now accessible through an interstate verification system called the State-to-State (S2S) Verification Service, administered by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. As of 2026, 45 jurisdictions participate in S2S. That is not a state database. That is a network.

Is Real ID the Same as a Passport?

No, and the gap between them is enormous. A United States passport is a sovereign identity document issued by the federal government through the Department of State. It certifies your citizenship. It is recognized internationally. It permits you to cross borders, enter foreign nations, and return to the United States. A passport is your proof of national identity in the eyes of every government on Earth that maintains diplomatic relations with the United States.

A Real ID does none of those things. It cannot be used for international travel. It cannot be used for border crossings into Canada or Mexico. It cannot be used for international sea cruise travel. It functions exclusively within the domestic sphere, and within that sphere, it serves only the narrow purposes defined by the Act: domestic air travel, federal facility access, and nuclear power plant entry. If you hold a valid United States passport or passport card, you already satisfy every requirement that Real ID addresses. The passport is, in every functional and legal sense, superior to the Real ID. The State Department’s own website confirms that both the passport book and passport card are Real ID compliant, meaning they satisfy the identification standard without requiring you to obtain a Real ID driver’s license at all.

This creates an interesting class dynamic. Americans who already hold passports, a document that requires its own application process and fee, have no operational need for a Real ID. Americans who do not hold passports and rely exclusively on their state driver’s license for identification are the ones most affected by the mandate. The burden of compliance, in other words, falls disproportionately on those who travel less, who have fewer resources, and who are least likely to have assembled the documentary chain (birth certificate, Social Security card, proof of residency) that the Real ID application demands.

Is Real ID Mandatory?

Here is where the federal government’s language becomes instructively slippery. Real ID is not mandatory in the sense that no law compels you to obtain one. You will not be arrested or fined for not having a Real ID. You can still obtain a standard, non-compliant driver’s license in every state, and that license remains valid for driving, voting, age verification, and all state-level purposes. Multiple state DMVs, including New York, California, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Ohio, explicitly state on their websites that obtaining a Real ID is voluntary.

But voluntary is doing extraordinary work in that sentence. As of May 7, 2025, the enforcement deadline that was delayed six times over twenty years, state-issued identification that is not Real ID compliant is no longer accepted at TSA airport security checkpoints. If you show up at an airport with a standard driver’s license and no passport, you are not getting on that plane through normal channels. You are, as of February 1, 2026, directed to a new system called TSA ConfirmID, where you will pay a $45 fee for a 10-day travel window, submit to biometric or biographic identity verification, and face processing delays of up to 30 minutes. That fee was originally proposed at $18 in late 2025 and was raised to $45 within weeks, with TSA officials citing higher-than-anticipated costs for the verification infrastructure.

So Real ID is voluntary the way that paying for electricity is voluntary. You are technically free not to do it, but the consequences of refusal are designed to make refusal progressively more expensive and inconvenient. The TSA’s own early data from February 2026 reports that 95 to 99 percent of travelers are now presenting Real IDs or other acceptable identification at checkpoints. The compliance rate surged after the ConfirmID fee was announced, which tells you everything about the nature of this particular “choice.”

Why Does This Matter?

The privacy and civil liberties concerns surrounding Real ID have been consistent for two decades, and they have come from across the political spectrum. The ACLU has argued since the Act’s passage that Real ID effectively creates a national identity card system by standardizing state identification under federal control and requiring machine-readable technology on every compliant card. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned that the interstate database network creates an irresistible target for identity thieves and facilitates government tracking of individuals. Jim Harper, a senior fellow of digital privacy and constitutional law at the American Enterprise Institute, has stated flatly that Real ID is a national ID system and that, historically, national ID systems have been tools of authoritarian control.

Twenty-one states initially passed legislation or resolutions opposing, or outright refusing to implement, the Real ID Act. Montana was among the last holdouts. The opposition was bipartisan: libertarians objected to federal overreach, privacy advocates objected to the data-sharing requirements, immigration-focused groups objected to the documentary burden, and state budget officials objected to the unfunded mandate. The federal government provided no funding for implementation. States absorbed billions in costs, and those costs were passed to residents through higher DMV fees, longer processing times, and the bureaucratic overhead of verifying birth certificates, Social Security numbers, and residential histories for every applicant.

The requirement that all Real ID cards include an unencrypted machine-readable zone is particularly troubling. That zone contains personal information that can be read by anyone with a barcode scanner. Every time the card is swiped or scanned, it leaves a digital record. The DHS insists that Real ID does not create a federal database of driver’s license information and that each state maintains its own records. That is technically true. It is also technically true that the S2S Verification Service allows states to electronically query each other’s databases, that 45 jurisdictions now participate in that network, and that the practical difference between a centralized federal database and a federated network of interlinked state databases accessible to federal agencies is a distinction without a meaningful difference to the person whose data is in the system.

The Twenty-Year Delay Tells Its Own Story

The original Real ID Act set an implementation target of 2008. Enforcement was delayed to 2009, then 2011, then 2013, then 2014, then 2017, then 2020, then 2021, then 2023, and finally to May 7, 2025, where it was further softened by a phased enforcement plan that extends to May 5, 2027. That is twenty years of delay. That is not a story about logistical complexity. That is a story about a law that the states did not want, that the public did not demand, and that the federal government lacked the political will to enforce until the question of enforcement became entangled with the security theater of post-pandemic air travel.

The fact that the TSA is now charging $45 to verify the identity of travelers who do not present a Real ID, rather than simply accepting other reasonable forms of state identification as it did for two decades, reveals the enforcement mechanism for what it is: a financial penalty dressed up as a user fee. The travelers who pay it are not security threats. They are people who did not get to the DMV in time, or who could not assemble the required documents, or who made a principled decision not to participate in a system they regard as an overreach. Charging them $45 per trip does not make air travel safer. It makes non-compliance expensive.

Where This Leaves Us

If you fly domestically and do not have a passport, you need a Real ID. That is the practical reality. If you have a valid United States passport or passport card, you do not need a Real ID for any federal purpose, and there is a reasonable argument that the passport remains the better document to hold: it is federally issued, internationally recognized, and does not feed your data into an interstate verification network administered by a nonprofit trade association of motor vehicle administrators.

The Real ID is not a federal ID card. It is something more subtle and, in many ways, more concerning: it is a federal standard that conscripts state identification systems into a national security apparatus, links them through shared databases, and imposes compliance through the denial of access to services that Americans have used freely for generations. It was passed without adequate debate, implemented without federal funding, delayed for twenty years because of legitimate and widespread opposition, and is now being enforced through a fee structure that penalizes the Americans least equipped to navigate the bureaucratic requirements of compliance.

That is not security. That is architecture. And the architecture, once built, rarely gets torn down. It only gets expanded.

The Chilean billionaire who wants to mine copper and nickel near the Boundary Waters can’t even be bothered to pay his DC sewer bill?

Law professor and ethics watchdog Richard Painter put it bluntly back in 2019:

Jared and Ivanka’s landlord — a billionaire from Chile who rents them their mansion in D.C. — will use the Boundary Waters as his toilet. Pro-sulfide mining politicians in Minnesota and Washington are handing him the washroom key.

Seven years later, the key to the billionaire’s commode is now turning in the lock. House Joint Resolution 140 will open the door. Meanwhile, as the above notice of delinquency indicates, this same Chilean billionaire has been using Washington DC’s waters and sewers, and the people charged with managing his toilet can’t even be bothered to see that the water bill is paid on time. 

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority — whose motto reminds us that “Water is Life” —issued this notice to the owner of 2449 Tracy Place NW back in November. The property in question is the Kalorama mansion purchased for $5.5 million right after the 2016 election by Andronico Luksic Craig, the billionaire whose family also controls Antofagasta plc, the foreign mining conglomerate currently pushing to mine copper and nickel on the edge of the Boundary Waters. 

Luksic rented the Tracy Place NW mansion to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump for the duration of Trump’s first term while Antofagasta’s lawyers, lobbyists, and executives worked behind closed doors with administration officials to undo environmental protections and advance the Twin Metals mine. Despite serious public concern about foreign emoluments and other improprieties, no formal ethics review of the Kalorama rental arrangement was ever undertaken. It was, at best, a not-so-subtle influence operation, a form of corruption that today can seem almost quaint (but that hardly makes it excusable). Nowadays, Luksic could just arrange a meeting at the White House and present Trump with a gilded copper chamberpot.

Luksic continued to hold the Kalorama rental property after Trump’s first term violently unraveled and Jared and Ivanka fled DC. These days, the billionaire’s lawyers are supposed to be managing Tracy DC Real Estate (a Luksic front, one of many) and the the Kalorama property. They appear to be negligent or inattentive managers. In 2019, they failed to renew the required business license for the rental property on time; then in 2023, they simply “abandoned” the business license. The matter was referred to enforcement. 

So this latest infraction appears to be part of a pattern of neglect, and I would suggest that the pattern merits some serious consideration. In other words, I don’t think I’m just taking cheap shots here. In Washington DC, Luksic is an absent rent-seeker, as he would be in Minnesota; and in DC, it seems, his property managers can’t be arsed to comply with local codes and ordinances. His Minnesota managers might do better, or not; but the irresponsible oversight of the Kalorama property does nothing to assuage concern. (Much the same could be said about the significant fines another Luksic enterprise incurred for unauthorized water extraction at Agricola El Cerrito in April 2025).

DC has had to chase down Tracy DC Real Estate for operating the Kalorama property without a license; and the city has had to place a lien against the property in order to collect what is owed for water and sewage management. This is not exactly the conduct of a model citizen or someone with a commitment to the District of Columbia. It’s what we might expect from an absentee landlord.

And that is essentially what Minnesota and the country will get with the Twin Metals mine: an absent owner from a faraway place and a group of hired managers on the ground. Antofagasta might hire the most qualified managers at the Twin Metals mine, and I’m sure they will say that they have; but even the best managers are employees, not owners. With ownership comes responsibility.

The absentee, rent-seeking model of resource extraction is especially concerning when it comes to sulfide mining, where responsible local water management is critical in order to prevent – or at least try to prevent – acid mine drainage and other toxic pollution. Only last month, in fact, the Chilean government fined Antofagasta $775,000 for failing to comply with water management rules. Will our regulators ever be so diligent?

Think of it this way: a copper and nickel mine is, among other things, a sewer. It can, and in most cases will, drain, leak, or discharge pollutants for decades after the mine has closed and the owner has absconded with the profits.

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Character From the Catastrophic McDonald’s AI Ad Come Back to Haunt Fast Food Chain https://petapixel.com/2025/12/18/character-from-the-catastrophic-mcdonalds-ai-ad-come-back-to-haunt-fast-food-chain/ #aiimagegenerator #aicopyright #Technology #burgerking #copyright #mcdonalds #ownership #fastfood #aiimage #News

Thursday, November 27, 2025

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2025/11/thursday-november-27-2025/

A quotation from The Bible

The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
 
[πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κτήματα καὶ τὰς ὑπάρξεις ἐπίπρασκον καὶ διεμέριζον αὐτὰ πᾶσιν καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν·]

The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 2:44-45 [JB (1966)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79533/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #acts #actsoftheapostles #Christians #commune #community #faithful #money #ownership #property #sharing #togetherness

A quotation from The Bible

The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
 
[πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κτήματα καὶ τὰς ὑπάρξεις ἐπίπρασκον καὶ διεμέριζον αὐτὰ πᾶσιν καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν·]

The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 2:44-45 [JB (1966)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79533/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #acts #actsoftheapostles #Christians #commune #community #faithful #money #ownership #property #sharing #togetherness

A quotation from The Bible

The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
 
[πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κτήματα καὶ τὰς ὑπάρξεις ἐπίπρασκον καὶ διεμέριζον αὐτὰ πᾶσιν καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν·]

The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 2:44-45 [JB (1966)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79533/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #acts #actsoftheapostles #Christians #commune #community #faithful #money #ownership #property #sharing #togetherness

A quotation from The Bible

The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
 
[πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κτήματα καὶ τὰς ὑπάρξεις ἐπίπρασκον καὶ διεμέριζον αὐτὰ πᾶσιν καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν·]

The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 2:44-45 [JB (1966)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79533/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #acts #actsoftheapostles #Christians #commune #community #faithful #money #ownership #property #sharing #togetherness

@economics

If you don’t spend — if you hold or “save” money — it stays in your bank account and the aggregate stock is unchanged.

In the long run, asset prices go up.
The most powerful wealth multiplicators are real estate and equities (aka. property and shares).

#wealth #accumulation #assets #money #savings #estate #realEstate #property #family #ownership #riches #shares #equities #holdings

If you don’t spend — if you hold or “save” money — it stays in your bank account and the aggregate stock is unchanged.

In the long run, asset prices go up.
The most powerful wealth multiplicators are real estate and equities (aka. property and shares).

#wealth #accumulation #assets #money #savings #estate #realEstate #property #family #ownership #riches #shares #equities #holdings

#TickTock #ownership #Concerned #AffirmativeAction #Bigots #homophobes #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #LGBTQRights #websitedesign #Hypocrites #hypocrisy #SamuelAlito #SCOTUS #SCOTUSIsCorrupt #SCOTUSisCOMPROMISED #ClarenceThomas #ClarenceThomasMustResign #ClarenceThomasCorruption #SupremeCourt #GinniThomas #MAGATears #MAGAmeltdown #MAGACult #Treason #Traitors #racists #Trump #Republicans #RepublicanParty #RepublicansLie #GOPCircus #GOPBullshittery #GopBetrayedAmerica #IllegitimateSCOTUS #ChristianTaliban